ALEKSANDR SOROKIN 

We take a look at the phenomenal Aleksandr Sorokin’s 24 hr record and try to chart his personal progress to World Records and put it into historical context.

 

Rewriting the ultra distance record books

Lithuania’s Aleksandr Sorokin has been rewriting the ultra distance record books in the last 2 years. 

In that time he has set new men’s marks at 100km, 100 miles, 12 hours and 24 hours. His recent improvement on his already phenomenal 24 hour record has certainly got people talking.

His new distance, set at the IAU European 24 hour championships in Verona on September 17/18th was 319.614 km. This was an improvement of just over 10km on his previous mark of 309.399 km set in Poland in August 2021. In miles the new mark equates to 198.598.miles, tantalisingly close to the magical 200 mile barrier. It is a distance that seemed almost impossible  two years ago.

Comparisons with legendary Yiannis Kouros

The legendary Greek ultra runner Yiannis Kouros had owned the 24 hour event throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. He took 24 hour running to completely new levels, improving the world record on several occasions.

He ended his high level career having slowly improved the 24 hour record from an already impressive 284.583 km/176.831 miles in 1984, taking it beyond the 300km barrier to 303.506 km/188.590 miles by 1998.

In this time he improved the world record on five occasions and also set 12 of the current top 20 distances ever. Also worth noting that 6 of those top 20 times have only been achieved in the last 12 months such was Kouros perceived domination of the event for so many years.

Sorokin’s yearly progress.

Kouros achieved a level of consistency that many people thought would last for a generation. In fact it was only 20years before Sorokin started to make waves in the ultra scene. 

He had come late to the sport aged 31 taking up running, it is said, to lose weight and get in shape. Within a couple of years he had graduated to running totally competent 50k and 100k races. Good enough to get him selected for the Lithuanian team for the world 100km championships in Doha in 2014.

2015 saw him selected for the World 24 hour in Turin where he recorded a totally competent 242.189 km (150.489 miles) for 21st place. He also improved his 100km time to 6:50:34 that year.

2016 saw a big breakthrough when early in the year he improved his 24 hr distance by 18km (11 miles) to 260.491 km (161.861 miles). This made him a contender at the European 24 Champs in October that year.

 At the Championships he set off at a fast pace and led the race for the first 18 hours. He then noticeably faded with Britain’s Dan Lawson pacing more evenly to take the title. Although some ridiculed his early pace, you sensed here was a a runner with no shortage of confidence, who with continued good advice  and dedication to training had the capacity to “nail a big distance” at some time in the future.

2017 was a year of seeming consolidation managing only 243.362km at the World Championships  in Belfast but finishing the year with a win at the 245km Spartathlon race in Greece. His time of 22.04.04 was the 6th fastest time for the race. Interestingly, as a comparison, Kouros holds the top four Spartathlon times including the record of 20:25:00.

2018 saw him improve his PB by a few metres to 260.991 km when making the podium in a Championships for the first time. His distance of 260.991 km good enough for 3rd place at the European Championship in Romania.  

2019 Crowned World Champion in a breakthrough year

Fast forward to 2019 and again leading from the start he carried it off without too much fade and won the Sri Chimnoy 24 hour race in Basle, in May, with a big 272.708 km/169.452 Miles.

In September of 2019, as he returned to Albi in France for the IAU World Championships, he again ran hard from the start and took his 24 hr distance to another new level. He gained his first Global Championship win and pushed his distance out to 278.972 km /173.345 miles.

Now the consistent distances were gaining attention that he, like Kouros before him, was learning from experience (and mistakes) and becoming a consistent 24 hour performer.

At the time it made him the 4th ranked athlete in the World all time list, however it was only with the 15th furthest distance.

Kouros’s former dominance

Such had been Yiannis Kouros domination of the event in the 80’s and 90’s, the Greek actually held 12 of the top 15 distances over 24 hours, including what was thought to be the unreachable 303.506 km/ 188.590 miles. Although Sorokin was gaining consistency, he was still comparatively lagging behind the standards Kouros had set and around 25 km /15 miles short of the Greek’s record.

Kouros had set this mark on the track in the Sri Chinmoy 24 hr event in Adelaide, Australia in 1997, and the accompanying road best of 290.221km/180.334Milkes also at a Sri Chinmoy event, but on a different continent at the Basle race in 1998. 

An event that changed Aleksandr and us all

Then something happened early in 2020 to change all our lives. The Global Coronavirus Pandemic happened.

It is chronicled In other articles, but unable to work at his job in a casino in his native Latvia, Sorokin took the opportunity, many now had, to be in effect a full time athlete. He now had the ideal situation of having the time to train more and train harder in the knowledge that he had the time to rest and recover properly and avoid what most athletes fear most overtraining, injury or burnout.

The benefit was to be seen, for coming out of lockdown at the end of August 2020, he improved his 100km best to 6:43:13 at Pabienice in Poland.

Fast forward to 2021

Another winter of lockdowns and intense training, delivered him to the start line of James Elson’s Centurion 100 Mile Track Race at Ashford in Kent.

100 miles was duly blitzed in a  new world record of 11:14:56 beating the time of 11:19:13 American Zach Bitter had set in Wisconsin in August 2019. He then carried on to reach 12 hours also in a new world best of 170.30 km/105.825 miles.

People were already starting to talk of how this confidence to approach 100miles at world record effort could translate to a 24 hour.

They didn’t have long to find out for  4 months later in August of that year, he entered the Ultra Park 24 hour race in Pabience in Poland.

Kouros’s “unreachable” record is surpassed

In the space of the next 24 hours the seemingly unthinkable happened and Kouros’s “out of reach” 303 km was surpassed. A new mark of 309.399 km/192.251 miles was set by the Lithuanian. This improved an already totally credible PB by over 30km /18Miles and gained him interest from beyond the ultra running community to the wider athletics and sporting community.

Was that Sorokin at the max or was there more to come?

It appeared not. 2022 started well for Sorokin with a trip to Israel and the Spartanian event and consolidating his new found levels of fitness and endurance, the 100 mile record was lowered even further. The 11 hour barrier was smashed  to 10:51:39 and almost as a bonus ball, he again continued to set a new 12 hour mark of 177.410 km/ 110.237miles.

Experienced (older) ultra observers were now comparing him to the great male ultra pioneers like America’s Ted Corbitt, Scotland’s Don Ritchie and Kouros himself, who all at their prime were breaking records with monotonous regularity, practically every time they towed a start line.

Return to Centurion Track race to take the 100km record

This regularity continued when he returned to the Centurion Track races in April and a change of venue this time to Bedford in England. The shorter 100km record was challenged and in now familiar trail blazing mode,  a new best performance of 6 hours 05 minutes and 41 seconds was duly attained. Due to the reality of record keeping, this track effort is only classed as a best performance. The 100k distance is only recognised by World Athletics as a road event for record purposes. 

The road mark of Japan’s Nao Kazami of 6:09:14 holds sway as far as World Athletics are concerned. The International Association of Ultra Runners (IAU) however recognise track distances and have duly ratified it for their extensive rankings list. 

Now having the relatively superior “basic speed endurance“ at 100km and 100 miles, people were now starting to think that 200 miles was possible. Much as statisticians started musing on the 2 hour marathon when runners were regularly breaking the one hour barrier for the half marathon, ultra aficionados were now speculating if Sorokin could put two back to back sub 12 hour 100 milers together and break the 200 mile barrier.  

Was 198.5 miles in 24 hours a failure?

Whatever the future, 198.5 miles will remain another benchmark in Aleksandr Sorokin’s 24 hour record journey. The fact that Sorokin only came up a mile and a half or 2 km short in Verona, cannot really be seen as a failure.

Sorokin himself has stated post Verona that he set off a little too fast in his quest to improve the 24 hour record. He also had to weave in and out a little amongst the large field on the short 1.525 km loop thereby probably running extra distance from the shortest running line. Distance that doesn’t count in the race total!! World and national records aren’t decided by submitting Garmin or Corus data. They are decided by the stop watch and the course measurers distance certification which always takes the shortest possible line.

Two factors that, notwithstanding his obvious fatigue, probably cost him the 200 miles in the end. 

He is sure to try again

Who would dare to say that he has reached “his max” and he won’t  rest up, go away and come up with a pacing strategy, choose a course and conditions that allows him to run at that optimal effort to find  what are wafer thin margins of a few seconds a kilometre to  enable him to achieve this ?He

Rest and recover well Aleksandr we await your 2023 adventures.

You can read about how the Mens GB team rewrote the British Rankings at the IAU European Championships in Verona HERE

You can look up the impressive achievements of Yiannis Kouros HERE

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